Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Robin Wansley, and I am the chair of the administration and entreprise oversight committee.

I am going to call to order our regular scheduled meeting for today, October 27, 2025.

But before we begin the meeting, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all committee members, staff, and the public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation.

These broadcasts include real-time captioning as a further method to increase the accessibility of our proceedings to the community.

Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast.

We ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comments.

I'll now have the clerk call the role.

Councilmember Payne.

Present.

Vita present.

Cashman present.

Chuck Tai, present.

Vice Chair Palmasano present.

Chair Wansley.

That is six members present.

Thank you, and let the record reflect that we do have a quorum today.

Also, I'll remind my colleagues that excuse me per usual.

We're using speaker management.

And if you're having any issues signing in, please find the clerk who is sitting right at the end of us.

Who can assist you with that?

All right.

So first we're going to take up the consent agenda, which has nine items, and I'll read that for the public record.

The first is a bid for Newton Avenue Sanitary Sewer Reconstruction Project.

Two is a bid for a convention center dish machine and prep table replacement project.

Three is a contract with Amery National Community Services, LLC for loan portfolio management and loan development services.

Four is a contract with ABM Equipment LLC to provide loan master refused packer bodies and temper assemblies.

Five is master contracts with various vendors to establish an executive recruitment services pool for executive search services.

Six is master contracts with various vendors for the 2026 through 2029 public works consulting pool.

Seven is a contract amendment with Kimley Horn and Associates Inc.

for engineering and design services for the Hennepin F South Street Reconstruction Project.

Eight is a contract amendment with Fairview Health Services for Reach Food Resource Navigator Services.

And number nine is an entreprise risk management ordinance.

With that, I will move these items for approval and see if there's any questions in the queue.

All right, see no one getting in for further discussion.

I will do a sample voice vote.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

All right, the ayes have it, and that motion carries.

Discussion item number 10.

Our first discussion items related to actually to item 10 and 11, which are related to gift acceptance for the police department staff, um, several staff.

Specifically, I will ask uh Vicky Trotskick Trouswick, the director of police financial operations to speak on both items.

Um and yeah, I'll invite Vicky up.

Thank you, Chair Wandsley, committee members.

Uh, the first guest gift acceptance um is to accept funds from the Arnold Foundation for travel for two to participate in a recruitment workshop.

This action was not submitted timely.

The travel is for 10 28 and will have occurred prior to the full council on 11.6.

I was told that the delay was related to selecting a recruitment team member, and also the new employee wasn't aware of the timeline.

We have added this to our new employee handout in order to prevent this in the future.

Um, that is the first gift acceptance.

The total is 2750 for the travel for two.

The second gift acceptance was um related to the chief receiving a request on 1015 to speak at the Tri-City Leadership Academy on 11.7.

Um, this will go to full council on 11.6, but it won't have the mayor's review by the time of the travel.

So this is technically submitted late.

Um I did not have enough notice from the Tri-City Leadership Academy to submit that more timely.

Um, that is for $842 for one-night travel for the chief 11 6 to 7.

Thank you, Vicki.

Um, not seeing anyone else in queue.

I put my stuff in cue.

Uh, just one flagging that I did request for presentations on these items.

As you all know, we take up gift acceptances and want to make sure that all staff are complying with our policies to submit them ahead of the date of travel.

That has not happened in the case here.

Um so I will be making the motion to forward these two items uh 10-11 for two full council without recommendation.

Um, as a result of that, it's great to hear that more information around how to comply with our gift acceptance policy is being circulated among staff.

Um, hopefully, this will not happen again, but um I will make the motion to for these without recommendation.

Can I have a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Next, oh no, so hold on, Vicky.

Uh, we do have someone else in Q, Vice President Chuck Ty.

Thank you, Madam Chair, uh, Director Troswick.

Thank you for uh coming before the Administration and Enterprise Oversight Committee today um to provide some additional context about these two gift acceptances.

I think my question for you is um, you know, it's helpful to understand the the context here for these two particular gift acceptances, and that you were not given the information you needed in order to submit these uh RCAs on time.

So I am uh so I guess I'll start with saying I think that the police department um generally speaking um seems to have a difficult time submitting gift acceptances in accordance with city policy.

So um can you just help me understand what work you are doing as the person that I'm picking up based on context clues is responsible uh for submitting these RCAs?

Like what work are you doing to help make sure you're set up for success um among those who are attending who are accepting gifts?

Thank you, Chair Wandsley, Councilmember Chugtai.

Um it is a large department, so it is challenging.

Um we do a lot of things by chain of command, so it really has to come down the command structure through communication, and there's a lot of policy change, and they do have a communic lines of communication, you know, that goes through command, and I plan to use those channels.

Wonderful.

And have you done that so far?

Have you found success in that?

Through the chair, council member Chugtai.

I have not written up a formal um document to prepare people for this, but I certainly will.

Wonderful.

That's I mean that's helpful to know.

I think um I I think to me this um continuing challenge with um with getting gift acceptances in as outlined in our policy um is less about um you not filling in RCAs on time.

So I'm just trying to understand what's actually going on.

Um, you know, I I continue to be really frustrated by the um I guess disregard for our uh for our adopted policies in um in submitting these gift acceptances on time, and I think that's something that's not just true this term as I'm on this committee and monitoring these things, but has been true um uh throughout my time in office, and so I uh and and you're new to your role, new ish.

Um, so I you know, to me, this is less about um you or the person in your role communicating um the appropriate protocol and more about um something else going wrong.

So um if you have any additional thoughts here, I I'd welcome them now.

Through the chair council member, there's definitely room for improvement, and I plan to work on that.

Thank you.

Wonderful, thank you.

I really appreciate that.

Um, and as I've said, I will not be voting for gift acceptances that are submitted um beyond uh the date of um approval by the council um because that is pretty explicitly uh in violation of our city policy.

So um I'm not gonna be voting for these items today, as they will come after when the council has the opportunity to approve.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

All right.

And then we have Vice Chair Palmasano.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just wanted to say I don't think we've ever denied a request to travel for professional development when it's free.

There are some people who travel so much in their professional development roles, that I wonder if we should maybe question how much time they're spending in the office.

But this type of request feels like a little bit of oversight gone rogue.

And I just want to point out to my colleagues that there is a lot of goodwill that is spread through our staff attending conferences, promoting the city of Minneapolis, and being seen as a national attendee or speaker in some such thing.

We've even seen some of our staff invited internationally for things like last cycle, the homegrown food council in Milan.

I mean, I think I know Councilmember Vita and I were um very jealous of that one.

Um perhaps wanting to put a substitute motion of putting ourselves in, but that of course isn't the point.

It's about um sending our professional staff for development opportunities or to share the good work of the city of Minneapolis.

Thank you.

Next I see Vice President Chuck Ty.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair.

You know, I I really appreciate the role that our city staff have in educating others who are peers in their industry in the work that that is being conducted.

I I can certainly appreciate that, but the role we hired them for was to work in our city on behalf of our constituents to improve um their quality of life or to respond to services um that are within their line of business.

I think it's a great thing that we are um willing to uh share our our um expertise with others.

That's certainly not why we hire people um and have roles here though.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Vice President Chad Cai.

I did put myself in cue uh because also just uh this is a note for Vicky, and I see our commissioner of uh community safety here, whatever policy you put in place, I think would be great to attach to this ahead of full council so that everyone understands what changes are being put in place because as council vice president Chuck Ty, we have noticed uh that and pertaining to MPD.

Again, we've had situations where these gift acceptances are submitted after the date of travel to Vice Chair Pomasano's point.

Um I think we've he had some conversations behind um the scenes or privately around frequency of travel.

I've noticed almost nearly every cycle.

Our current chief uh Chief O'Hara has also used a gift acceptance to also go across the country to talk about, I'm assuming work related to what we're doing here to advance public safety and models that can be used in other parts of the country.

Um but I do think it creates a concern of you know visibility elsewhere sharing that work and then the expectation of being here to also meet your your obligations as an employee.

But I think as assurance, uh and knowing that MPD is not the only one that has fallen prey to these uh late gift acceptances submissions, just getting a sense of what actual corrective measures have been um done and the documentation um that actually solidifies that.

So I will put that as a staff member follow-up if that can be a company with this um item ahead of full council um next Thursday where at least one of these would have been already essentially done in terms of the gift acceptances and the the dates um would fall after council's consideration or final consideration of it.

Um so note that for staff follow-up.

And with that um we can do a row call vote again on the motion to for both items 10 and 11 without recommendation.

Councilmember Payne.

Aye, Vita.

Aye.

Cashman.

Hi.

Chung Tai.

Nay.

Vice Chair Palmasano.

Aye.

Chair Wansley.

Aye.

That's five eyes, one nay.

Awesome.

And uh that items or those two items, uh, carry forward, and then we look forward to seeing the materials attached to this.

And please feel free to work with the clerks to get those memos attached to this item.

That said, our next discussion discussion item is 12 regarding amending the pay parental leave policy.

I will ask Amy Freeman from Human Resources to speak on this item.

Good afternoon, Chair Wansley, committee members.

As you said, we are here today to request an update to the City of Minneapolis paid parental leave policy.

The reason for this change is to align with the state's new paid family medical leave law that was passed in 2023.

The new law that applies to all employers in the state goes into effect on January 1st, 2026, and provides partial wage replacement for leave for the employees' own medical condition and leave to care for a family member.

And currently our paid parental leave does not.

For context of this request, I'll provide just a high-level overview of this new law.

Employees will have 12 weeks partial wage replacement paid leave for both for their own medical condition and leave to care for a family member.

The leave for caring for a family member includes bonding with a baby.

In the state's program, bonding includes foster placement.

Employees are eligible for 12 weeks for each type of leave, and the total amount of leave available in a year is capped at 20.

20 weeks, even if both types of leave are taken.

Sorry.

Currently, the state's paid parental leave, the city's paid parental leave policy allows for 12 weeks of full salary for birth or adoption of a child.

Both birthing and non-birthing parents are eligible as long as they are current city employees, and this leave must be used within 12 months of the event.

So what we are requesting is simply a change to the paid parental leave policy, adding foster care placement to the current policy as a qualifying event, effective January 1st, 2026.

A little bit more context of next steps and other things we are doing in implementing this law.

In addition to updating the paid parental leave policy, we are working on other areas of implementation, such as finalizing our plan document and contract with the standard and completing coalition bargaining.

We will then be working with the standard to implement all of the details.

We have also begun some robust communication efforts.

We've started with manager and supervisor trainings and have completed two of those with two more in the next couple of weeks.

And Madam Chair, I'm happy to respond to any questions.

Thank you, Amy.

We have Vice Chair Palmasano in Q next and then Councilmember Cashman afterwards.

Thank you, Ms.

Friedman, for this presentation.

Similar to what I brought forward recently with the safe and sick time ordinance updates.

This is about updating our ordinance to be in compliance with state law.

We already offer paid parental leave for birth or adoption, and now we're simply adding in foster place placement.

And we've been implementing our own paid parental leave for a few years now, but we are now part of the larger state system.

So my question, Ms.

Friedman, for clarification is can you help us understand how we as a city fit into the state system since we meet or exceed requirements from the state on our own?

Do we file an exemption for participating?

Chair Wandsley, Councilmember Palmasano, members of the committee, yes, we will be offering every employer in the state of Minnesota needs to offer the state's plan or offer an equivalent plan.

We are planning to offer an equivalent plan and have filed that plan with the state and are working on the final details of that to get approval of that plan.

And with that, we do what we are planning to offer our paid parental leave, which goes above and beyond the state's program and would like to offer foster care in the same manner that we offer all other paid parental leave, which is full pay.

Um and then I believe there's a 0.88% payroll tax.

Are we exempt from that as we're implementing our own program or do we still pay that as a city?

Chair Wandsley, Councilmember Palmasano, we are going to be collecting the point, the point eight eight as a means of funding this program because we still do need to fund the program.

And one of the things we are working on finalizing with our unions is what the split will be because we can split that with the between the employee and the employer, with the employee paying no more than 0.44%.

Thank you.

And I know this is beyond your own wheelhouse, but as sick as these policies roll out across the state, are there um generally standards for how much each party contributes or do employers tend to pay it all or a shared contribution, or what are this is beyond your wheelhouse, and there's other people I can ask, but um what are you seeing as someone who's been working with a lot of people around the state on this?

Chair Wandsley, Councilmember Palmasano, we um are hearing what we're understanding is most employers and most public employers have settled on a 50-50 split of that contribution.

That is what has appeared to become the norm.

Yeah, that's tracks with what I've been hearing too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, I see Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you, Chair Wandsley, and thank you, Ms.

Friedman, for the presentation on this.

Uh, I had reached out to some HR staff director Odom earlier about whether or not the payback provision for parental leave would be evaluated, and um was wondering, and she and she indicated that it would be reviewed with this new policy.

So I'm wondering if you have any updates on that piece in this part that's brought forward now or in the pieces that are coming later.

Chair Wandsley, Councilmember Cashman, members of the committee, we are under the impression that that would not be in compliance with the state's law, and our plan at this point is that would be removed.

Okay, the payback provision is the payback provision.

Yes, okay, thank you so much.

Thank you.

And just uh brief comment on my end.

Um, I think this policy and being one of the original authors with council member uh or former council member Andrew Johnson uh about almost two years ago.

Um, I what I'm proud of the work that our staff done that our colleagues did to once again set a standard uh for the state around how we need to be meeting the needs of our residents and specifically working families in our city.

Um, and I absolutely believe, you know, per usual, Minneapolis taking that initiative and saying we're going to provide this this needed benefit for working families.

Absolutely help to support the momentum of organizing at the statewide level to say this shouldn't just be isolated to one city being Minneapolis, but all working families across the state should also be benefiting from that.

And uh time and time again, I see Minneapolis constantly stepping out when it comes to worker protections like this um and other needed public benefits of us setting that standard, and oftentimes in conversations with uh elected legislators at the state capital.

There's lots of perceptions about Minneapolis, but one thing that gets overlooked time and time again is Minneapolis is leading the state when it comes to a wide range of working class issues as we're discussing and considering and amending today around pay family leave.

And I'm just proud of the fact that again we we time and time again demonstrate that.

Um and as a result, thousands of families can benefit across the state from said policy effort.

So um just wanted to highlight that and thank our staff for their work on this, and also I know Vice Chair Pamasano also uh did a lot of collaboration with you all in bringing this amendment forward.

So also gratitude to her efforts.

Um, but yeah, thank you all for that.

And with that, I will uh move approval of this item.

Um, and with that, we can call.

Let me make sure yeah, there's someone else in the queue.

Uh, we can just do uh roll uh sorry, yeah.

Roll call.

Council member Payne.

Aye.

Vita.

Aye.

Cashman.

Aye.

Chuck Tai is absent.

Vice Chair Palmasano, aye.

And Chair Wansley.

That is five eyes.

Awesome.

That motion carries.

Thank you all for your work on that.

And then our last discussion item is item 13, which will be a closed session.

Um, I will uh and specifically a closed session around receiving a briefing on strategy for labor negotiations involving the police officers federation, many members of the public who have followed our meetings have recognized that we've done these every uh quarter uh just to stay abreath on how negotiations are going ahead of any collective bargaining or contract for uh minneapolis police officers coming before us for us to have had substantial time in helping be part of uh the strategy process behind it.

So uh this is our last quarterly meeting of the year, and with that I will recognize our city attorney to provide um the legal basis and additional needed context for this requested closed session.

Thank you, Chair Wandsley.

The next item on the agenda is consideration of strategy for labor negotiations involving the Minneapolis Police Officers Federation.

Consideration of negotiation strategies or discussion review of labor negotiation proposals may be held in a closed session pursuant to Minnesota statutes section 13 D 03.

In order to close the meeting to the public, a majority of the committee must vote to close the meeting in deciding whether to close the meeting for labor negotiation strategy, the committee should weigh the right of the public to know what its government is doing against the need of the city to reserve the confidentiality of its labor negotiation strategy.

Thank you, City Attorney.

And before closing the meeting, um, staff has requested that John Foy Foy Foyd food food fruit, um, the policy advisor to the Mayor Fry's um office be admitted to this closed session.

Apparently, a motion is needed in order uh for the mayor's staff to join us and our rule state that so before he can be admitted.

I will first move to admit John Frude to our closed session.

Um, can I have a second?

All right, that motion has been seconded.

Um if we we'll just take a voice vote.

All those in favor say aye, aye.

Those not in favor, all right, the ayes have it, and then uh I will then make the motion to close uh this meeting so we can proceed with the closed session.

Um, all those in favor say aye.

Aye, all right, those not all right.

The ayes have it, and we will keep this uh broadcast live while we go for the closed session and be back.

Okay.

Oh damn.

All right, tech team.

Okay, so the time is now 254, and the administration and entreprise over site committee has reconvened in open session following our closed session on the negotiations process or in labor strategy related to our police uh federation negotiations.

With that, I will ask the clerk to call the roll to make sure and verify we have a quorum.

Councilmember Payne.

Chair Wansley.

That is by present.

All right, let the record reflect that we do have a quorum.

And with that, colleagues, uh, we've concluded all business to come before us today.

We are all adjourned.

All right.